How to Download Your Facebook Data

Ever wanted to download a copy of all of your Facebook activity? Concerned that you might need to archive all of your Facebook activity to ensure you’re in compliance with your jurisdiction’s ethical rules for advertising? Think your client’s Facebook activity might be important in a lawsuit?

Here’s how you can get your own copy of all Facebook activity from an individual Profile.

First, go to your Settings page. You can find it under the drop down arrow to the far right of the top navigation bar in Facebook:

At the very bottom of your General Account Settings, you’ll see a link to Download a copy of your Facebook data.

When you click on that link, you’ll be taken to a download page:

Clicking on the green Start My Archive button start the process to download not only posts, photos, and videos, but also your messages and chat conversations, your About information, all of your check-ins, information about ads you’ve clicked on, lists of your Friends and Followers, login and logout information, and your privacy settings, among other information. This page shows you the complete list of information provided in your download.

Once your download is ready, Facebook will send you an email to the email address listed on your Facebook account along with a link to your download. When you click on the link to download your file, you’ll have to enter your Facebook password. The contents of your Facebook account will be downloaded into a zip file.

If you don’t use the link within a few days, it will expire and you’ll need to begin the download process all over again.